In early December, a father and son stood at the center of Eccles Coliseum reflecting on the past — and the present.

The father: Leonard Walterscheid, the first Thunderbird to make it to the NFL.
The Son: Justin Walterscheid, the offensive play caller during all three of SUU’s playoff seasons.
Together: Potentially the most illustrious family in Southern Utah football history.

Len’s name and number sit perched at the top of Southern Utah’s home stadium; he's one of three players to have their number retired by the school.

Justin’s offenses have been some of the best in school history, with his 2015 team holding the record for most points scored in a season (425); the 2017 team wasn’t too far behind with 403. The T-Birds have made the playoffs three times (2013, 2015, 2017), Walterscheid called the plays for all three of those teams.

“Forty years ago, I was here as a student playing," Len said. "I watched (Justin) perform as an athlete. But I didn’t think I would get nearly as much pleasure watching him coach as I do.”

Justin knows the joy of watching. He’s watched his dad play ever since he can remember.

He has some vague, possibly fabricated, memories of being in a stadium in Buffalo with his mom and her pointing out his dad on the field. And growing up, he used to pop old Bears tape into the VCR to see his dad in action -- though he admits now, he was more focused on watching Walter Payton.

“I would just watch old games over and over and over,” Justin said. “It was a hobby I had as a kid and really just fell in love with football.”

Just like his father before him.

Len grew up in Moab — one of the last places you’d think to find a future NFL player. But, for him, that was always the dream. On rainy days, little Lenny would lay on his bed and throw a football up towards the ceiling over and over trying to see how close he could get it without it touching and think, “Man, if I could play pro football I’d be rich.”

The Walterscheids weren’t rich. Far from it. Lenny grew up in a trailer with his parents and four siblings. His father drove trucks, which often meant long trips away from his family.

“The things they appreciated were being able to get a soda pop or being able to go to the swimming pool,” Justin said. “It puts things in perspective.”

Lenny was a 2A All-State running back in high school, but that didn’t mean much to the bigger schools in the state. Utah and BYU didn’t recruit Moab, and his only offer was to Southern Utah State College. So he headed off to Cedar City.

“The rest is history,” Justin said.

Len broke nearly every return record and a number of receiving ones during his time at SUSC. Even today, over 40 years since he last played a collegiate game, Len’s name is still all over the SUU record book. But while he was a standout in college, it was what he did after his final season that really cemented his legacy.

Following his senior year, Len attended a camp in southern California where a number of NFL coaches were in attendance. He ran faster than any other player there and legendary coach Sid Gillman, who soon would be hired as the Bears offensive coordinator, approached him and asked for his information.

“I didn’t know who the old guy was,” Len said. “But he came up to me and said, ‘Son, why don’t you give me your name.’ And he wrote my name on a little piece of paper.”

Len would later send Gillman some game film and following that year’s draft, he was signed as a free agent by the Bears. He spent six years in Chicago, mostly playing safety. In 1980, he led Chicago in interceptions with four and even returned one for a touchdown -- the first NFL touchdown scored by an SUU player. He finished his career with the Bills.

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Leonard Waltershcheid and his son Justin pose for a photo, December 1, 2017.(Photo: Jordan Allred / The Spectrum & Daily News)

“I didn’t get rich momentarily,” Len said, referring back to those early Moab days. “But I sure got rich with some friendships.”

It wasn’t fatherly advice that got Justin to go to SUU. Justin was a prep All-American from Grand Junction, Colorado and originally went to the place his dad wanted to go: the University of Utah. But after his second season there, Ron McBride was fired and Justin didn’t feel like he fit in with the new staff. When former Utah assistant Gary Andersen got the head coaching job at SUU, Justin decided to transfer to Cedar and join him.

And it was another Utah connection that brought him back to SUU as a coach.

Justin was a grad assistant on Utah’s offensive staff under Aaron Roderick. And it was Roderick who recommended Justin for a job to former SUU coach Ed Lamb.

Lamb hired Justin, but when he got back to SUU something was off. He looked up at his father’s name on the stadium and saw it was spelled wrong.

“They were missing the C and they had the E and the I backward,” Justin said.

He wasn’t the only one to notice, either.

“I tried to nonchalantly mention it to Lamb,” Len said. “They put it up and they were kind of proud of it. I didn’t want to be too stuffy about it.”

A couple months after starting at SUU, Justin finally asked about changing it.

“I was going to make sure I had a nice comfortable seat here and a position locked in before I brought that to anyone’s attention,” Justin said. “So they put the C in, but they still had the E and the I backward. It took a couple changes but they finally got it right.”

Ever since he was a kid, Justin has had a strong mind for the game. That’s what happens when you spend your days as a kid studying Walter Payton film. Or playing with a football magnet board and rearranging the players for hours. Or when your dad is having you run passing routes with the other kids in the neighborhood.

And he’s still pretty sharp at it. Len comes to most SUU home games still and usually finds time to sit in the offensive meetings if only to try and figure out what his son’s offense is doing on the field.

“He’s got me outsmarted considerably,” Len said. “The game is so much more sophisticated. Just things like the bunch formation -- we never did that. We lined up two or three wideouts and two backs in the backfield. The terminology is way over my head. Some of the intricacies — all the way down to the right foot, left foot — it all makes good sense, we just never thought of it.”

He never thought he'd have much reason to return to Cedar City following his playing days, either. But now the first SUU football legend has one big reason to keep coming back.

“He says it now that he can’t believe he’s still attached to Cedar City,” Justin said. “He thought when he left there wouldn't be a lot of reason for him to come back. And now he doesn’t miss a game.”